Norman Mailer, one of the most visible and confrontational writers of the twentieth century, is dead at 84.

Mailer’s personal life sometimes overshadowed his writing: he once headbutted another writer, Gore Vidal, backstage at “The Dick Cavett Show.”  He also stabbed one of his six wives.

My experience with Mailer is somewhat limited–just a couple of essays and his Pulitzer Prize-winning, 1000-page The Executioner’s Song, a “true-life” novel about Gary Gilmore, a career criminal who was famously executed in Utah in the late 1970’s.  The story is true (and told with journalistic detachment), but the novel is a work of fiction, complete with fabricated elements.

If you want to learn more, try The New York Times, which has both an obituary and an appreciation.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days is a great movie about young people who stand up to an oppressive political regime.  In 1943, Sophie Scholl and two other university students were arrested for spearheading a passive resistance movement in Nazi Germany.  The three of them were tried, convicted, and executed within three days.  The film is at times demanding (most of the first half is set in an office with just Scholl and her interrogator), but watching Scholl’s refusal to back down is inspiring.  If you’re willing to watch a foreign film, check it out.